The NHL playoffs may be the dominant hockey news for good reason, but they aren't providing the only highlights. A United States Hockey League forward proved that emphatically on Monday night.

The player you can see finishing off the ridiculous goal you see in the clip above is Austin Cangelosi of the Youngstown Phantoms, a team in the USHL, which is the non-NHL or high school-affiliated junior circuit in the U.S. Cangelosi, a 17-year-old budding star, found himself with the puck near the middle of the rink in overtime of his team's 4-3 victory against the Cedar Rapids Roughriders, and then just let his instincts take over to net the all-important playoff game-winner.

Here's how Buzzing the Net, Prep Rally's Canadian brotherly junior hockey blog, artfully summed up Cangelosi's magic moment:

Cangelosi, who's been described as classic crafty centre, got his Bubba Watson on and chipped the puck high and out of reach of Cedar Rapids' John Gilmour before darting in to flip it over goalie Jacob Hildebrand and create a magical playoff moment. Phantoms play-by-play man Bart Logan's state of nirvana really competed the tableau.

Classic and crafty are both fitting descriptions of that goal. "Magical" and "Ovechkin-like" might work as well.

"I meant to do it, but it didn't register," Cangelosi told the Youngstown Vindicator. "I processed it, but it didn't process through my head. Somehow something came out of it.

"It was trickling down behind his back and I was just ecstatic. I popped down on one knee, I couldn't believe it."

Two high school baseball teams which use the Panthers mascot two states apart brought a halt to two of the nation's longest losing streaks on Saturday and Sunday, ending more than four years of combined misery for the two schools.

The Camden High School baseball team — BeRecruited

As reported by the Annapolis Capital and Philadelphia Inquirer, the Annapolis (Md.) High baseball team ended a 40-game losing streak on Saturday and the Camden (N.J.) High baseball squad brought an end to its own 36-game dry spell on Sunday, with both squads' previous losing streaks spanning more than two full seasons.

Annapolis was first to break the program's victory drought, scratching out a 2-1 victory against nearby Severn (Md.) High. As reported by the Capital, the victory was almost solely driven by pitcher Michael Patterson, who pitched a complete-game three-hitter for the Panthers and struck out seven, allowing just one run across his 90-pitch outing. The Annapolis star also drove in his team's winning run with a sixth-inning RBI single, delivering a hit just in time for him to go back out and close out the school's first victory since April 2010.

"These kids are very excited. It's definitely a step in the right direction for turning this program around," Annapolis coach Gene Bowles told the Capital. "To have a team effort like we did today and beat a team like Severn is a big statement. This game could turn the page for us here at Annapolis."

While Annapolis' hard luck streak may have lasted for longer in terms of games, Camden's was more epic in terms of how many days it encompassed. The Panthers had not won a competitive baseball game since the final game of the 2009 season, with Camden finishing with an 0-fer record in both 2010 and 2011.

When you think of polo, the images that come to mind usually evoke the likes of princes and their aristocratic cohorts. Yet for the past two seasons, the program which has won the National Interscholastic Polo Championship was comprised of teenagers from backgrounds about as far from Prince Harry as possible: They're all natives of inner-city Philadelphia.

Members of the Work To Ride polo team — WorktoRide.net

As reported extensively by CNN, ESPN and a handful of other sources, the Work To Ride team has emerged as the strongest force in American scholastic polo, using a not-for-profit program based out of the stables at Philadelphia's Fairmount Park as the basis for the kind of class-bending success usually reserved for a Disney fairytale script.

To win the 2012 crown in March, the Work To Ride squad had to knock off a perennial blueblood squad, California's El Dorado, at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. While the championship match was a tight-fought contest, Work To Ride eventually emerged victorious after a double-overtime shootout, locking up back-to-back prestigious national polo titles for the least likely victors of all.

"You couldn't have written a movie any better than what that was," Work To Ride Executive Director Leslie Hiner told CNN's Sarah Hoye. "It was so clutch."

The predominant story lines behind Work To Ride's stunning success could sound trite and disingenuous -- kids from the mean streets make good -- if they weren't so overwhelmingly apparent when watching the team compete, as you can in the CNN video above. By playing polo, and working together to clean the stables for the opportunity to compete in the sport they love, Work To Ride has emerged as a transformative force for some of the roughest parts of Philadelphia since it was founded in 1994.

A high school baseball game in Oregon took on the tone of a 1960s MLB classic on Monday when a 16-inning thriller eventually came down to a single run … and that was the only run of the game.

The Canby baseball team celebrates — CanbyBaseball.com

As reported by Oregon Live, the Canby (Ore.) High Cougars edged past Lake Oswego (Ore.) High in 16 innings on Monday by a final score of 1-0. The game featured an astonishing amount of effective defense, with the two teams combining for just one out and three walks across more than two full regulation games worth of baseball.

"It was definitely a confidence builder," Canby coach J.J. Stolsig told Oregon Live. "At the same time, we're trying to teach them that one game isn't going to make or break your season. But it definitely helps to come out on top in this case."

As one might expect for such a clean game, both starting pitchers put forth herculean efforts. Canby ace Kris Koskela and Lake Oswego star Will Waterman both pitched 11 shutout innings, with Koskela notching the lion's share of the Cougars' impressive 21 strikeout haul.

The winning run that eventually crossed came with one out in the bottom of the 16th, when a single scored Canby's Mike Caruso from second base.

A famous Georgia Little League manager will not be allowed to try and lead his town's program back to the Little League World Series after he was found to have illegally brought alcohol into the association's Williamsport, Pa., grounds during his team's 2011 run in the tournament, even though the coach apparently never drank a drop of it.

WRALL coach Phillip Johnson during the 2011 LLWS — Associated Press

As first reported by the Macon Telegraph and confirmed by the Associated Press, Warner Robbins (Ga.) Little League coach Phillip Johnson will not be allowed to take part in the 2012 Little League season after he was found to have carried alcohol into the Creighton J. Hale International Grove, a dormitory area at the Williamsport Little League International Complex. All areas of the Williamsport complex are alcohol free during the tournament, which left little wriggle room for Johnson to explain why he had toted alcohol into the facility.

Yet, according to the coach, he never drank any of the alcohol, which was presented to him as a gift from a parent of one of the team's players. Rather, Johnson claims he felt guilty as soon as he brought the alcohol into the facility and promptly threw it out instead of holding on to the bottle.

Despite that mitigating factor, Little League officials still decided to ban him from the 2012 event (should Warner Robins advance that far), with the Warner Robins Area Little League following suit and barring him from coaching during the association's regular season as well.

"Little League found out, and obviously I made a bad decision. I admitted it, and I regret it," Johnson told the Telegraph.

The line of ethical conduct in a relationship between a coach and a high school student can often be blurred. It's also one of the areas in which school children can be both positively influenced or put at severe, dangerous risk. Even more than with traditional teachers, coaches often wield an extraordinary amount of authority over their athletes and, when they cross over into the classroom, their students, because of their personalities.

Former Lake Washington boys basketball coach Barry Johnson — KangHoops.com

The second part of that equation may have rarely been more obvious than in the case of a Lake Washington (Wash.) High boys basketball coach Barry Johnson, who now stands accused of sexual harassment with students in his class, including an incident in which he allegedly invoked the Jerry Sandusky scandal to make a crude sexual joke. What may have begun as an honest attempt to comfort a troubled student gradually built into what is alleged to be troublingly inappropriate relationships which included a handful of disgusting comments by the coach, actions which eventually led to his resignation amidst a Lake Washington school district investigation into his conduct.

Johnson officially pleaded not guilty to the charges of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes on Tuesday.

According to an internal investigation into Johnson's conduct, which was obtained by the Seattle Times, Johnson was first brought up for hugging a female student after a fellow Lake Washington student had committed suicide. While that effort might have seemed endearing or innocuous at the very least, the coach later began asking the same coach about her sex life during classwork. The coach followed that up with a Facebook friend request for the student and finally and the interactions concluded with more disturbing comments during a lunch period which eventually pushed the student to report the coach to administrators in December.

If that series of interactions wasn't enough, there's this: Johnson reportedly asked a male student in his class if he was going to "Sandusky" another male Lake Washington classmate when discussing the Penn State sex abuse scandal.

If true, that has to be among the most deplorable comments from a high school coach on record. And that says nothing of the deeper trauma that Johnson allegedly caused the female student who accused him of harassment.

For his part, Johnson has denied that he was responsible for any of the comments attributed to him, though he has resigned from his post and has not refuted his attempt to connect with the unnamed female student on Facebook. In his defense, the former coach claimed in a statement he was actually attempting to help the student in question, whom he claims was using illegal drugs.

"The allegations that lead (sic) to me being placed on administrative leave were made within twenty four hours of me asking a young person about their use of drugs," Johnson wrote in his letter of resignation. "That same young person admitted to me that they were using Animal Tranquilizers amongst (sic) other drugs. I was hoping to get that young person help. I realize that the way in which this was done could have been different. Outside of electronic communication, the allegations that were made about me are outrageous, unfounded and unsubstantiated."

A wildly popular football coach in Washington state was put under pressure to fire two of his assistants to meet with the standards of an "improvement plan" initiated after the results of a random survey. While that might be awkward under any circumstances, this particular coach's job was even more difficult for a powerful reason: He was being asked to fire his father and brother.

Gig Harbor coach Darren McKay — Tacoma News Tribune

Eventually, the coach's refusal to meet with those guidelines led to his own dismissal just hours after impassioned pleas from the community to keep him on board.

As reported by the Tacoma News Tribune, among other sources, Gig Harbor (Wash.) High football coach Darren McKay was told that his father and brother -- who have served as the team's offensive line coach, and offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, respectively -- were no longer allowed to be on his staff following the results of anonymous online surveys completed by parents of Gig Harbor players.

The decision to force out the other members of the McKay clan came after Darren McKay had already been given a positive end-of-season review by Gig Harbor athletic director Dale Johnson, the result of a 5-4 regular season and playoff berth that eventually ended in a postseason loss to perennial powerhouse Bellarmine (Wash.) High. In 12 years as a teacher and coach at Gig Harbor, McKay compiled a 77-41 record.

According to the News Tribune, just days after McKay's "official" review with Johnson, he was called back in by Johnson and was handed the results of the anonymous survey by the AD and school principal Ted Strong. The two administrators told McKay that as a result of the survey he would be placed on an "improvement plan" and that his relatives would not be allowed to continue as coaches within the Tides' football program.

Faced with the decision to accept harsh treatment of his relatives or resign, McKay did neither, instead filing a grievance against the policy that led to the ouster of his fellow staff members.

The outstanding grievance led to a large gathering of Gig Harbor football players and parents at a school board meeting on Thursday night, with all making clear that they felt a Gig Harbor team without all three McKays on the coaching staff would be inadequate.

The student they call Fish will get to walk at his graduation after all.

In a rapid volte-face, the Carrollton (Ohio) School District has relented and will allow embattled senior baseball player Austin Fisher to walk with his classmates at graduation. The decision was rendered by the school district superintendent on Monday afternoon in the small Ohio town of just more than 3,000 and followed a day when a media blitzkrieg about his predicament received national attention here on Prep Rally, on CNN and elsewhere across the Internet and television news landscape.

As reported by the Canton Repository, Carrollton Superintendent Palmer Fogler unilaterally reversed the prior decisions of school principals to ban Fisher from walking at his graduation with his classmates because he had two too many school absences, making the decision to allow Austin Fisher to walk at graduation a day before the topic was to be discussed at a scheduled school board meeting.

As noted previously here on Prep Rally, all of Fisher's absences were the result of Fisher caring for his mother, Teri Fisher, who was battling Stage IV cancer in fall 2011. According to Fisher's aunt, Cynthia Vignos, the teen's absences were deemed unexcused because Teri Fisher was often too sick to call in and report him or because she needed him to drive her to her chemotherapy treatments, which accounted for absences that would not have qualified to be excused.

Austin and Teresa Fisher — Facebook

There was no official word on whether Austin Fisher would also be allowed to take part in other traditional senior activities like the prom, which he previously would have been excluded from because of his absences.

According to one member of the Carrollton Exempted Village Board of Education, she and her fellow board members were completely unaware of the situation before it began to receive local and national attention, adding that the board planned to launch a full investigation into the previous decision to bar the younger Fisher from taking part in traditional graduation festivities.

"To be honest, we didn't know anything until it hit the media," Carrollton Board President Rose Seck, who spoke with Teri Fisher about the situation on Friday, told the Repository.